Publications

The impact of different cleaning processes on the laser damage threshold of antireflection coatings for Z-Backlighter optics at Sandia National Laboratories

Field, Ella; Bellum, John C.; Kletecka, Damon E.

We have examined how different cleaning processes affect the laser induced damage threshold of antireflection coatings for large dimension, Z-Backlighter laser optics at Sandia National Laboratories. Laser damage thresholds were measured after the coatings were created, and again 4 months later to determine which cleaning processes were most effective. There is a nearly twofold increase in laser induced damage threshold between the antireflection coatings that were cleaned and those that were not cleaned. The laser-induced damage threshold results also revealed that every antireflection coating had a high defect density, despite the cleaning process used, which indicates that improvements to either the cleaning or deposition processes should provide even higher laser induced damage thresholds.